


Wars Without Weapons

by shirogiku



Series: Give Him A Blanket [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: 18th Century Nerdery, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humour, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fix-It, Forced Committing, Gen, Heists, Implied/Referenced Medical Torture, Literary References & Allusions, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institution, Period-Typical Awfulness, Pre-Series, Thomas Never Changes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:00:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6861928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirogiku/pseuds/shirogiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which some things hurt, but Thomas lives and heists his way out of Bedlam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wars Without Weapons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DreamingPagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [DreamingPagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/pseuds/DreamingPagan) in the [pirate_prompts_2016](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/pirate_prompts_2016) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> So, I've seen plenty of victim Thomas and model prisoner/saint Thomas and that's all good stuff, but how about Thomas who proves to be a right disruptive little shit, making trouble amongst the other inmates, finding ways to escape his cell, and generally make life miserable for the staff and doctors, who are well aware that he's anything but insane? How about Thomas who makes such a nuisance of himself that someone in charge eventually comes up with the bright idea of saying he committed suicide and actually quietly letting him go, knowing the Earl will want nothing to do with the burial or the scandal? Let's have a dose of stubborn, willful, clever Thomas who won't be denied any more in Bethlem than he would outside it. Can lead to reunion fic if desired, but mostly just want a different take on the character.
> 
>  **A/N:** so, writing the previous Thomas-in-Bedlam fic and this prompt have been gnawing at me for aaages, so I caved in and went on a research spree... and this happened!
> 
> Dr. Tyson was a real person, but I think I haven't treated him worse than the show has treated Rogers lol. The guy [WEARS POODLE WIGS](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQGMOfZWEAA2QkC.jpg). Come on!
> 
> I hope you enjoy, OP!
> 
> P.S. I tried to put up all the warnings I could think of, but as a rule of thumb, BEDLAM! SCARY!

 

“ _They said I was mad; and I said they were mad; damn them, they outvoted me!”_

― Nathaniel Lee (dramatist)

 

It all started with a blanket. Or rather, with Thomas’s chronic inability to procure himself one. Such a small thing, really, but it changed everything.

His cell, like others, opened out on to a gallery. The other opening was a narrow, barred and unglazed window, shaped like a crescent moon, though no effort of imagination could turn it into something palatial. It let in some air and light when it pleased, without banishing the unseemly odours and at the cost of chilling one to the bones as soon as the first cold arrived. Far, far too many people believed the mad to be insensible to their surroundings.

The tally marks told him that outside, it was December, with the grim anniversary almost upon him; he had been more methodical in making them than he could remember. Here, time passed differently, and his body could tell a different story.

The heavy key slid in the lock. His instinctive terror at the sound, too, he was sorry to say, was almost a year old - he had learnt to expect nothing good from it very fast. Jeduthan, his usual caretaker - and god forbid anybody called him ‘Jed’ or any other shorter name - told Thomas that the baths were waiting.

The Bethlem Physician might have an avid interest in natural sciences, having studied porpoises and chimpanzees, but he emphatically did _not_ run a zoo. The revival of the ancient practice of bathing was, ostensibly, for their benefit, and ‘the numbers spoke for themselves’: two out of three recoveries under his care. Many persons of means preferred his regime to private madhouses or their own homes. It was only a shame that Thomas was not meant to be a success story, and besides, the water, be it scalding hot or numbing the extremities, was a terrible combination with chilblains. The relief that it could bring to his flea bites and skin rashes was like in that saying about burning down the house.

Also, nowhere in Dr. Tyson’s ‘moral treatment’ did either personal dignity _or_ privacy factor in.

Thomas studied him silently from across the room, hugging his knees to his chest and doing his best to ignore the persistent, swelling burn in his toes. A stout, well-dressed fellow, the Physician favoured the kind of wigs that Thomas himself used to wear. Dealing with him was as close to intellectual exercise as it ever got these days. Another shadow on the wall.

“I have given much thought to your case,” the Physician was saying, “and the more I think about it, the more it reminds me of another patient of mine. It was right after my appointment-”

“Not Mr Nathaniel Lee, the dramatist?”

The brooding personage broke into a small, pleased smile, like he was wont to do whenever Thomas conformed to his expectations of non-threatening intelligence. “Correct!” The doctor’s brow creased. “But tell me, you have not read any of his plays, have you?”

“Indeed I have not,” Thomas replied immediately.

Nathaniel Lee had collaborated with Dryden and Purcell, and penned a version of _Oedipus_. One of the original libertines, he was remembered as dashing, handsome and utterly talentless. But even if his was not the most impressive body of work, there was raw passion behind it, which could have blossomed into skill. Thomas, personally, was sorry not to have witnessed his attempt to take London by storm.

“Good, good. It was rubbish, all of it,” Dr. Tyson went on, oblivious. “He was a notorious drinker! Once, during his stay at his patron’s house, he tried to drink the entire cellar! All on his own!” The wig shook at some private recollections, with just the barest trace of fondness. “It was wine that killed him, but, I believe, theatre and literature had ruined him first.”

My God, have _I_ ever looked this ridiculous in my wig? Thomas thought. _Yes_ , said James’s voice in his head, _on many occasions._

But why hasn’t _Miranda_ ever said a thing? _Haven’t I? Whose fault is it that you can’t take a hint?_

“How so?” Thomas remembered to ask. All dialogues tended to put Jeduthan to a sort of an equine sleep, so he risked taking one burning foot out of the water.

Dr. Tyson’s chair creaked, nowhere near the puddles on the tiled floor. “Theatre and literature,” he repeated with a gusto, “and I say this as an anatomist of some experience, irrevocably alter the structure of one’s brain. For example, I once opened a pamphleteer’s skull - and nothing but liquid inside!” That _had_ to be an exaggeration! “For you see, your mind and your body are a pair of communicating vessels.” Would it were otherwise. “And as books distort your perceptions, that distortion rewrites your anatomy.”

In a jolt, Thomas recalled a Dissenter whom Dr. Tyson had treated by shaving off his hair to blister his scalp. The poor old soul had died from infection. He clenched his fists under the surface.

Was _that_ to be his end? During his early months here, he had fancied himself a martyr, drawing on Marcus Aurelius and on Jesus Christ’s suffering, and bearing it all so that James and Miranda would not have to. No physical chains could have held him as fast. But how many more indignities _could_ a man endure? Merely a man, not a saint. And why was he the one doing this penance, while Peter and the Earl walked free?

Dr. Tyson was looking at him expectantly.

“Oh, I quite agree with you, Doctor,” he replied, measuring out each word like medicine, but with none of the forcing it down people’s throats. “I _used_ to think that books were a lens or perhaps a looking glass that helped one see the world as it was.” His nails dug into his palms. “But I have come to realise that most of them are a mere outpouring of personal demons. Can it be right to inflict them upon your fellow Man?”

Slowly and grudgingly, Dr. Tyson lit up with delight. He encouraged Thomas to continue, gesturing at Jeduthan to get him out of the tub.

The king had said, _Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?_ Sir Thomas of Canterbury had fought a lot more before he was slain.

“There is another ill that has contributed to my sad state.”

“What ill is that, pray tell?”

“Idleness,” he said sharply, feeling his heart beating against his ribcage. “I have not done a day’s honest work in my life. Perhaps, if salutary occupation were to be added to my regular walks, it could speed up my progress.”

The thing was, Dr. Tyson truly did believe the official version of events: Thomas had been committed to be cured of his mental anguish. If Lord Ashbourne had bribed the Physician to be particularly cruel, the word would have got out, sooner or later. On the other hand, so long as Dr. Tyson was on the side of the angels, the farce could go on forever. Years, decades, Thomas’s health allowing. A body could take a surprisingly long time to wither and decay. And despite the doctor’s general optimism about his patients, the chains were yet to be abolished, and the violent and the incurables were kept side by side with those who should not have been here in the first place.

Thomas used to be naive enough to think that if Dr. Tyson had bought his commission from the other contender, his progressive approach must be real. But in truth, it was all about being noticed by and currying favour with the Royal Society. An anatomist always waited to dissect. He might even publish a monograph on _Thomas_ , after the fact.

No, Thomas was awake now, and he must not let that happen. _James and Miranda would never ask this of him._

“By all means!” was the Physician’s verdict. “What an excellent idea! What say you to assisting the cook?”

He fidgeted in his poorly-fitting clothes, which clung to his sore skin damply. The most striking part of Lee’s biography was that he had not _died_ in the hospital, nor was he buried here. He had been run over by a carriage.

Dr. Tyson clapped Thomas on the back, making him stagger. “You will begin tomorrow! Tomorrow is a new day.”

The trick was not to show _too_ much progress lest the Physician summon his father. Still dazed at his success, Thomas was ushered out to stretch his wobbly legs. He had braved the Society, played the game and admired his wife as she played it, with so much more skill than he had ever possessed, but it was this place that had finally taught him to lie.

James would have broken himself out. Bethlem was, of course, as political as anything. John Carkesse, Pepys’s enemy in the Navy Office, had been institutionalised. Dr. Allen, Dr. Tyson’s predecessor and a friend of Pepys’s, had refused to certify to Carkesse’s recovery until the latter ceased lampooning his practice. Eventually, Carkesse had joined the precious few who had been discharged on their own request, which was what had given Thomas his previous foolish hope, quite abandoned as of this moment.

Visits were never _not_ painful. Father’s and Peter’s each had ended in a loss of one liberty or the other and a long depressive spell from which Thomas might not have resurfaced. The rest of his former friends had wounded him by moving on with their lives, and he could not bring himself to be glad of their continued good fortunes. As to strangers, he used to search their faces for a glimmer of understanding - not pity, never that - only to find that he was a dangerous lunatic because he had dared to dream.

From that point of view, the kitchen duty was a blessing: it shielded him from all those people, and brought him closer to all those who dwelled behind the scenes. Mr. Farnham, the cook, was an old sailor with an impressive collection of ailments and tales from Far East. Mrs. King, the steward’s wife and the matron of the house, was a strict Puritan and an embezzler - but once Thomas had earned her approval, he was given his first blanket. He also learnt all about her troubles with the Lady who lodged in her guest room instead of a cell on account of her noble lineage. In the cold months, the inmates were allowed to warm themselves around the kitchen fire and the servants grew more sociable. Remembering James’s reluctant confessions from the service, Thomas hoarded his daily allowance of liquor. The other basements were rented to the East India Company, and it had been a very long time since the last thorough inspection. The local ‘physician of soul’ was well pleased with Thomas for his labour.

By and by, he began to recover his strength.

For Christmas, Farnham made a most wondrous plum pudding - it felt like the best thing that Thomas had ever tasted and then some. And he saved a slice for a new friend.

“‘ _It’s a pity the magnificent exterior should not match the spirit inside_ ,’” he quoted. Of the entire _The London Spy_ , to have memorised _this_ snippet by heart! “But this was never _intended_ to be a hospital, let alone a madhouse. It was raised during the reign of Henry the Third for the collection of alms in support of the Crusades. Fascinating, is it not?”

Thomas the Fiddler - Bedlam had over a dozen of Thomases beyond doubt, the last time he counted - sat staring vacantly at the wall in front of him. His musical instrument rested on his lap; every now and then, he would run his fingers over it as if to reassure himself that no one had taken it away. They never touched those hands: his music was too beautiful, and cost them no money, unlike hiring someone from outside. Thomas would sometimes catch a stray flicker in the Fiddler’s eyes, terribly skittish, and treasure it without endangering its secret.

He went on, “He - Mr. Ward - compares our present circumstances to Don Quevedo’s vision of the Judgement Day, _where the damned broke loose, and put Hell in an uproar_.” He couldn’t say that he had ever _liked_ such social satire, but it had amused him, instead of serving as a warning. “At any rate, my favourite essay by the Spanish gentleman is where a demon possesses a constable, and the constable proves to be the wickeder of the two.” He himself had written a light-hearted parody in which the constable and his wife taught the demon love, compassion and a quite different sort of wickedness.

Yet another piece of evidence against him, no doubt, not that Peter’s testimony wouldn’t have sufficed.

“Would you like to finish my pudding?”

The Fiddler nodded, and Thomas handed him the plate.

Before, he had not been _completely_ oblivious, but his vision had been far from clear. Now, he noticed things. Things like where Mr. Farnham hid his drink and where Mrs. King kept her _other_ account books. He also knew which patients informed on others and assisted in capturing the escapees and which could and would rather escape themselves.

It was time to act.

“What you suggest is-”

“-madness?” He smiled at the look on Lady Ramsden’s face. “Are we not all mad here anyway?” As far as strange pairs went, this was not the strangest: he needed someone on the inside to watch Mrs. King, and distract her if necessary.

The Lady pursed her lips in concentration. “No, not madness.” Her anemic pallor gave way to what had not been there before: a feverish hope. “A _coup_.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “By the time we are through with this place, it will have ground to a halt.”

She frowned. “But what if we are discovered? We shall be thrown behind bars, and that would be the end of it.”

“One, two ringleaders can be isolated. But _that_ is precisely why our influence must remain hidden.” Wars were fought on the frontlines, but they were won from the shadows. He had finally learnt that lesson.

The Easter of the year 1707 in Bedlam was beautiful. The Fiddler played a new tune, and each and every patient physically capable of it, including the informers, first sang the psalms, and then Mr. Farnham’s filthiest sea shanties from dawn to dusk and through the night. Alone, they were the sufferers, but together, they outnumbered the staff, a force to be reckoned with.

Dr. Tyson, who had been away on a social call, could make neither head nor tails of the incident. And so it went: complaints from the servants about bad food, the cook never at fault. Mysterious cases of vanishing items. Glue in Dr. Tyson’s wig. The women’s own riots. With the waiting list shrinking and the donations taking one blow after the other, Thomas’s counsel suddenly became indispensable. And, he kept reminding himself, he _had_ been driven to this dishonesty. The Society demanded as much just as the price of admission.

“As someone who knows all too well what it is like to have your position threatened by a single mistake,” he was saying as he accompanied Dr. Tyson on the latter’s visit to the nearby bookshops, “I can advise you this: uncover the root causes. That is always essential to success.” The proviso still stood: no books for him.

A week later, he, the Fiddler, and Lady Ramsden were none too gently escorted into the Physician’s office. Most of all, Thomas dreaded to see his father, but that danger decided to pass him by,

“Serious allegations have been made against the three of you.” Dr. Tyson nodded towards Mrs. King, who smiled nastily. ”What have you to say for yourselves?”

Even as Thomas opened his mouth to point out that the matron was hardly a paragon of virtue herself, Elizabeth stepped forward boldly.

“No, the question is,” she threw back her head, covered with a white cap, “what will _you_ say to your patrons when you completely lose control of your patients? Oh, do excuse me, it has already happened.”

The Fiddler’s eyes were fixed on the oak paneling, his hands tightly clasped together before him.

The Physician transferred his attention to Thomas. “Really, Lord Hamilton, I expected better of you.”

“Odd, that. I _distinctly_ remember disowning my father. So it’s Mr. Hamilton if you please.” Whatever may come of it, he did not regret his rebellion.

Dr. Tyson slammed his fists down on the table. “Damn the lot of you! I do my best to look after you, and this is how you repay me?”

“Language, Doctor.”

“Where the _devil_ have you hidden the East India Company’s pepper? The Board will have my head, don’t you understand?”

On the contrary, he understood it perfectly. “I will write down the directions,” he said, shaking with agitation, “but on _our_ terms.”

The three of them were quietly and expediently discharged.

“This is not what I wanted!” Thomas despaired, hugging his blanket to his chest. They had left behind too many others, without making any real difference for their condition!

“Come now,” Elizabeth tugged on his arm, “before he changes his mind and actually hangs you, pepper or no pepper. You can’t save everyone, nor should you.”

He had _tried_. He blinked back the tears. He always tried and it was never bloody enough. But by the time they reached the coffee-house chosen by Elizabeth for their final transaction, he was already composed enough to do his part (the answer was: Mrs. King’s own lodgings). Even their distant-minded musician seemed to agree that they should not dally, so they left quickly afterwards, through a different door, before Dr. Tyson's men could detain them again.

“You must have been fighting this hard for a reason.” Lady Ramsden smiled. “And I shall never believe that your reason is back there, in that hellpit _._ ”

Oh. _Oh_. He had not dared to think of his two reasons for what felt like an eternity. But now, their smiling faces finally came back to him.

He was saved. Penniless and without a place in the world, but saved. Because he had saved himself.

He watched the carriages drive by for another moment, and looked away and ahead. “Do you, by any chance, know how one of such modest means could secure a passage to the West Indies, my friends?”

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this insanity is based on the information in _Bedlam: London and Its Mad_ by Catharine Arnold, plus another History of Bedlam on Google Books.


End file.
